


Where Dwell The Brave At Heart

by apropensityforcharm



Series: Season 6 Reaction Fics [12]
Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, don't trust me, vaguely chronological storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-20 01:29:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3631542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apropensityforcharm/pseuds/apropensityforcharm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“And who knows. Maybe this whole Glee thing will even turn out to be something special.”<br/>6x12 reaction. In which each of the original five have their own reasons for joining Glee club, and in the end they all get what they dreamed of. Gen fic; bouncing POV change. Yes, Blaine makes a cameo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Dwell The Brave At Heart

1.

Let one thing be very clear: Mercedes Jones  _is_ a star.

She knows it. Her parents know it. Her church damn well  _better_ know it, because if they try to take away her solos again then there will be hell to pay.

And maybe McKinley doesn’t know it just yet, but in fifteen years time, her name is going to be twenty feet high in flashing lights and she’ll be selling out stadiums to fans  _wailing to_ see her sing. And then Jacob Ben Israel will regret saying that her hair should be used in place of steel wool, she swears.

Miss Jones is a very patient lady. She doesn’t need to be adored now – why would she, when she knows that one day she’ll have people panting after her every move? She’s got her family, and she’s got her church choir, and everyone worth knowing respects her –

And yet.  Well, sometimes it does get her down a bit, when she only has her dreams to accompany her. And it’s fine,  _she’s_ fine, because she’s Miss Mercedes Jones and she doesn’t  _need_ anything from McKinley High at all. But that doesn’t mean she can’t  _want_ things, right? And maybe she  _wants_ a friend or two to gossip with when she gets to school in the morning. Maybe she  _wants_ a buddy to talk about boys and fashion with. There’s nothing wrong with that, and damn anyone who says there is.

And to be perfectly honest, it feels  _good_ when that adorable kid – Kurt, his name was Kurt – chases her down about the whole new Glee club thing. Sure, she shines when she’s singing at Church, but why shouldn’t she get to shine all the time? It’s about time that McKinley knows that Mercedes Jones is a star too.

And who knows. Maybe this whole Glee thing will even turn out to be something special.

(Mercedes Jones doesn’t know it yet, but it’s not fifteen years until her name is twenty feet high in flashing lights – it’s eight. By the time fifteen years has passed, her name will have entered the company of Beyonce and Mariah Carey, and she commands the respect of nations.

Jacob Ben Israel works for TMZ, and can be found haunting the venues of her LA shows for any hint of a quote. Mercedes never even looks at him.)

2.

Not that Tina would ever tell anyone, but signing up for Glee club is possibly the bravest thing she’s ever done.

By the time she and Artie get to the sign-up sheet, there are two people who’ve already signed up: Mercedes Jones – gorgeous closet-diva with the confident strut, right? And – god – Kurt Hummel, who is probably washing off his a slushy in the girl’s bathroom right now. Tina looks at the names, then looks down at Artie and thinks to herself,  _You did say you wanted to be unpopular._

And it’s not that which makes her hand trip when she goes to write her name on the sheet. Because Artie is sticking by her, and they’ve already made a pact that they’ll be with each other to the very end, so whatever happens she’s always going to have at least one ally. She can handle being even lower on the food chain than she already is – hell, if she can convince herself then she’ll thrive on every dirty look that gets thrown her way.

But when she gets up on that audition stage, it’s going to feel as if the entire school is looking at her. And Tina would have to be deaf not to hear at least some of the things that the Berry girl has been ranting about, and the way she talks makes it seem as though every single performance has to come from the soul, or else your entire life is fraudulent. Tina doesn’t want anyone to see her bare her soul. She doesn’t even know what her soul  _is._ Her life is a constant pendulum between painful shyness and a very confusing anger, and how the hell is she supposed to channel  _that_ into a song?

Does she really want to go through with this?

_Yes. Yes, I do._

Tina stares at her name, black and white on the sign-up list, and thinks,  _To hell with it._ She wants to be sexy, and she wants to be angry, and she wants to be  _seen._ Shyness can, very frankly, go fuck itself. She’ll join the club, and she’ll rebuild herself into an entirely new person.

Glee club will be a whole new start.

(Tina rebuilds herself exactly three times: once when she joins Glee club, once in her senior year of high school, and once in her sophomore year of college. It takes some time before she ever feels settled in her own skin, but once she gets there, she’s never been happier.

A review of her first film says,  _One could scarcely take their eyes off Tina Cohen-Chang for two hours. Truly, the brightest star in the sky._ She prints it out and stick it on her wall, and has never been so glad to be noticed.)

3.

To be perfectly honest, Artie doesn’t even care about what happens in Glee club.

The fact is that he and Tina are in this together now. And yeah, maybe being in Glee club means that they have to be surrounded by three people who are even bigger losers than they are, but as long as he gets to stick with Tay, he doesn’t even care. These kids are probably a better fit than those other Goths they’ve been sitting with since the start of the year anyway. Tina liked being one of them, but Artie had sat there with his hair and his suspenders and his wheelchair, and it was honestly just so  _strenuous_ having to be bored all the time. At least his fellow freaks in Glee club don’t mind admitting that they  _like_ stuff. In fact, they’re almost over enthusiastic about it sometimes.

Besides, Artie likes singing. He’s got a dope voice and a tonne of swag and even Tina didn’t know that until they auditioned the other day. If Berry and Jones can stop fighting over solos for three seconds then he might even get the chance to show off his skills some day. And Tina will look at him and see what she’s been missing, and they’ll totally live out their days together in a villa in Miami. He has it all mapped out – seriously, he’s drawn diagrams.

So the whole singing thing – maybe it’s not quite the music that he listens to (seriously,  _Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat?_ ), but it’s fun. And maybe at one point, Schuester will realise that being in a wheelchair doesn’t mean that Artie can’t dance just fine, and he’ll get to show off his talents in  _that_ area too.

Yeah – getting to dance again. That would be good. That would be just perfect. And if Glee club can put him with Tina, then maybe it’ll give him that too.

(Artie will always miss being able to use his own feet for dancing, but he knows that he’s still hot as hell when he pulls out the moves anyway. He never does end up leaving Tina’s side, even if he strays once or twice, and in twenty years time, they will still be each other’s best companion. It doesn’t take long before he discovers his love for film making, and after that he’s basically set for life.

When Artie produces an old Hollywood genre Star Wars rip off, it tops the Box Office. What follows is a frankly ridiculous re-emergence of old Hollywood, paired with science fiction. Artie takes full credit, as he should.)

4.

The first three items on Rachel Berry’s wish list are this:

1.       Win a Tony by age 25; remember to update pre-written speech accordingly.

2.       Meet Babra Streisand (be polite, well composed, and civilised. DO NOT MENTION THE SHRINE.)

3.       Keep Finn Hudson in Glee club, make him fall in love with you; you have excellent musical chemistry, so it’s clearly meant to be.

The wish that Rachel Berry doesn’t write down, for fear of even acknowledging, is this:

1.       Make a friend.

The one thing that Rachel is better acquainted with than anything is herself. And she isn’t kidding herself in any way – she knows full well that she can be conceited and arrogant and stubborn. In fact, she relies on it. Brutality, she tells herself, is what show business is all about. Patti Lupone didn’t get where she did by being sweet to everyone around her – she was ruthless and ambitious, and that’s what Rachel has to be too. Because Rachel Berry is a star, and one day, the whole world will know it.

That’s why she always signs her signature with a star.

Friends are not a thing that Rachel Berry does, but maybe with this new Glee club post-Ryerson... she could be part of a team. As long as she gets to be the leader, of course.

As the leader of the team, she  _will_  drag Finn Hudson back to the club with her teeth if she has to. And as the leader of the team, she will make sure that her team mates  _know_ that the team exists – because right now it feels like no one even wants to look at each other.

Or – maybe they just don’t want to look at  _her._ Because she knows that Artie and Tina are inseparable, and Kurt and Mercedes are making fast friends, and Finn doesn’t really meet anyone’s eyes but he doesn’t count because he already has all his friends on the football team, but Rachel – well, Rachel’s on her own, of course. But that doesn’t matter, because as long as she can turn this team into a  _team,_ then she’ll be fine. She’ll have somewhere to belong. She’ll have something that’s  _hers._

She watches Kurt and Mercedes laugh together across the room, and the ache in her chest is a little hard to ignore. But Rachel Berry doesn’t do friends – it’s never worked out in the past, and it won’t work in the future. Her ambitions are enough – her ambitions are her reasons for living.

Glee club is a stepping stone to greatness. That’s all.

(Rachel Berry wins a Tony when she is twenty six. She meets Babra Streisand (and promptly embarrasses herself), and for a time, she and Finn were the happiest people in the world.

She also collects an island of misfits who would defend her through anything, and who love her with a fierceness of family fought hard to be won and kept. Her family loves her because of her quirks instead of in spite of them, and she will always maintain that that is her greatest achievement of all.)

5.

For Kurt Hummel, Glee club is a chance.

In all his life, he’s never been given many chances. He learnt very young that life is rarely fair when one needs it to be; standing in front of his mother’s grave taught him that. As did elementary school, dripping because Finn Hudson and Noah Puckerman threw pee balloons at him, and he didn’t have a change of clothes. As did middle school, when he had to get his lawn furniture down from the roof before his dad noticed, because god knows what he would do then.

High school had only piled on the bullies until every day, every  _step_ had felt like an effort. And he was fine, he was  _fine,_ but sometimes he couldn’t help wondering if it would ever get better after all. When every day is tinted grey at the edges, like thunderstorms always threatening in the distance, it gets hard to imagine anything different. And Kurt wanted to believe what everyone always said, that the sky would clear eventually, but when every day was bleak, dull, a flatlined heartbeat –  _it gets better_ doesn’t mean much then.

And then he’d found Glee club, and it’s only been two weeks and already so much seems different. Glee club means singing, and dancing, and the freedom to be yourself no matter what. Glee club means hope. And maybe Rachel Berry doesn’t want to be friends, but that’s okay because Mercedes Jones  _does,_ and the heartbeat gives a tiny, tentative  _thud._

The club is loud and utterly ridiculous, and Kurt already knows that his desire for solos will be drowned out by the  _other_ divas in the club before long, but that’s fine because he knows full well where he’s going after high school, and the only way is up. Being in the club gives him a sense of community, completely smashes that isolated glass wall he’s held around himself for so long, and the smells and sounds and colours that it brings with it are dizzying, euphoric. For the first time in a long time, Kurt doesn’t feel so terribly alone. For the first time in maybe  _ever,_ Kurt is making friends.

And if he’s making friends for the first time, maybe he could make some other firsts as well. Being in Glee club is rapidly teaching that him that he can do anything he wants to do, truly, and maybe he’ll tell his dad...

Not yet. Soon, but not yet.

For the first time in his life, Kurt Hummel feels as though he is  _living._

(His dad will love him through anything. The friends that he makes in Glee club will stick with him for the rest of his life. Kurt Hummel will always have to fight for whatever he wants, but he makes it in the end. He will have family, and friends, and success, and he will be happy. He will be loved.

And that’s really all he ever wanted.)

6.

(Two hours away, in a private school in Westerville, a freshman buttons his blazer for the very first time. He is feeling unsure and shaky on his own two feet. Soon enough, he will stumble upon a Glee club of his own, and he’ll feel a little more settled, a little more comfortable. Within two months, he will be considered one of the greatest soloist ever to grace the Warblers of Westerville.

He does not join the narrative yet. When he does, the catalyst will be the best coincidence of his life. He will be happy. He will be successful. He will have more family and friends than he knows what to do with; truthfully, this is all he could ever ask for.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much for reading. Kudos and/or comments would be appreciated. <3


End file.
